Westlake to Buy Back Shares, Raise Dividend

11:03 AM MDT | August 30, 2011 | Vincent Valk

Westlake Chemical has announced a plan to buy back $100 million worth of shares and raise its dividend by 16%. The share buyback is effective immediately and does not have an expiration date. Shares in Westlake closed at $37.81/share on Friday. The company has a market cap of $2.6 billion. The new dividend, payable on September 13 to shareholders of record as of September 2, will be 7.375 cts/share. The previous dividend was 6.35 cts/share. This will be Westlake's 28th consecutive quarterly dividend. "Earlier this month we reported financial...